Get a YouTube transcript with timestamps
Open the video on WithTranscript and press Copy transcript. Every paragraph in the copied text starts with its time in the video, like **[12:34]**, and the chapter list at the top has a start time for each chapter. It's part of getting a YouTube transcript.
What the timestamps look like
Times are written as minutes and seconds, or hours, minutes and seconds past the hour mark. A transcript that separates speakers puts the label after the time:
## Chapters
- 0:00 — Introduction
- 14:05 — The first model
## Transcript
**[0:01] Speaker A:** Okay, let's get started.
**[0:42] Speaker B:** Can I ask a question first?Transcripts built from captions don't name speakers, so they show just the time, with a dash where the speaker changes. More on speakers.
Getting back to a moment
On the transcript page itself you don't need to read timestamps at all: click any line and the video jumps there. To send someone to a moment, press S while the video plays (or use Copy link at current time) to copy a link that opens the video at that second. See linking to a timestamp.
Copy versus transcript.md
The Copy transcript button is the version with a timestamp on every paragraph. The /video/<id>/transcript.md page always has the timed chapter list, but for some videos its paragraphs are plain text without times. If you need per-paragraph times, copy.
Subtitle files
WithTranscript doesn't produce SRT or VTT files, which carry a time on every caption line for video editors. The Markdown is for reading, notes and quoting.
Example from the library
Lecture 1: Introduction to SuperpositionMIT OpenCourseWare (8.04 Quantum Physics I) · 1h 16mCopy this lecture to see the timed chapter list and per-paragraph timestamps.